Television: The box gave us the best moments of the week

The Eagles celebrate on the steps in front of the the Philadelphia Museum of Art after a Super Bowl victory parade for the Philadelphia Eagles football team, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018, in Philadelphia. The Eagles beat the New England Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl 52.
Associated Press

The team’s appearance in the Super Bowl was enough to excite multitudes. Its victory over the New England Patriots united the community, fusing it into a proud and solidly happy fan base, the way no politician or manufactured rally could.

The days between the NFC championship win over Minnesota and today are among the most golden in Delaware Valley history, and television helped bring so much of the drama, color, celebration, and joy home to us.

First came the games. Whether they were on Fox, NBC, ESPN, or some other outlet, they were the water cooler topic — how well the Eagles are doing, how likeable the team is, Carson Wentz being young, Nick Foles being such a delightful surprise, a dynasty in the making.

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Up to and including the Supere Bowl, wasn’t the most spectacular part about each broadcast the game itself?

Certainly that was true of Super Bowl LII.

Locally rooted entertainers Pink and Leslie Odom, Jr. started things off well. There was a commercial or two that lived up to Super Bowl expectations, especially those produced by Jeep and Eli Manning horning some Super Bowl attention by playing Patrick Swayze to Odell Beckham, Jr.’s Jennifer Grey. Justin Timberlake was mediocre and demonstrated the missing link of rock concerts, putting histrionic fireworks ahead of engaging the audience. NBC’s Cris Collinsworth was worse than an Eagles detractor. He was a bore who sputtered inanities in a voice that belongs at an accountant’s colloquium and not behind a television mike. He was so dull, he made the Phillies TV broadcast team seem lively.

No matter how bad, or disdainful Collinsworth was. He represents the bad part of television, the fatuous creep who gets hired to speak and cures insomnia in the bargain…

No matter how overblown and unentertaining Timberlake’s halftime pageant was…

No matter that Budweiser has people walking around thinking there’s wit to the response, “Dilly, dilly…

There was that game!

That great game in which almost every set of downs led to an Eagles or Patriots score.

That wonderful game in which a local favorite, even before the Wentz injury when he was mostly seen standing on the sidelines talking to Wentz between possessions, matched a seasoned Super Bowl performer pass for pass and play for play. And beat him with a trick play he suggested.

That marvelous game that planted a sense of destiny that seemed as if it might be uprooted at any moment, including the last one when Rob Gronkowski looked all around his massive self for the location of the ball.

The game was the thing, and at 41-33, no one could spoil it.

Not even Cris Collinsworth.

And television brought it to you.

Just as television in Philadelphia became one big pep rally, with all station devoting five sixths of each newscast to Eagles stories and Super Bowl preparation.

News teams competed for which could be the biggest boosters. Local weather reports included conditions in Minneapolis on LII Day. Stories may have been repetitive, monotonous, and carbon copies of the same old yarn, but the newscasters loved doing them, and people loved watching them.

It was part of the group savoring of the local team’s triumph. It was bonding. It was one common attitude reflecting one common spirit.

You saw that during the universal wall-to-wall coverage of Thursday’s parade.

For a long time, the pictures being broadcast were similar shots of crowds massing and having a ball. Commentators really didn’t have a wide variety of things to say. No reporter or anchor was outstanding acute or articulate. Most were making time or stating the obvious.

Again, it didn’t matter.

People watched to see others having a great time, and to share in it whether on Broad Street, the Parkway, on in their living room. I got into the spirit so much, I visited the graves of my recently deceased brother and cousins and showed them the parade on my iPhone. Because I knew they would have enjoyed the Eagles victory and what it meant. I watched the first football games I remember next to my brother, who by the way could spot a foul faster than any ref, so why not share a moment I know he’d have loved with him?

While all of the stations did a great job, I tended to stay on Channel 29 because it began its wall-to-wall at 4 a.m. and because I wasn’t as interested in what anyone was saying as much as I wanted to live vicariously from the people who got to South Philly, the Academy of Music, or the Art Museum and were lapping up the hoopla.

Television allowed me to do that. As it often does, it took me someplace I was not in a position, because of other responsibilities, or in a disposition, because I don’t like being in crowds, to go.

Television made me part of the action, whether it be pre-game, during the game, or post-game when Jason Kelce showed everyone what fun is and chose another word with an “f” to express himself.

Of course, television bleeped those occasions.

Good times fade into fond memories.

I know a lot of people who will count these past few weeks about their fondest.

One cousin of mine continues to watch the game and the parade as if they were taking place currently.

And she still cries, for joy, while rerunning either.

Heck, crying was in. Veteran football commentator Ray Didinger cried.

Who can blame him? Ray has seen practically every Eagles game for more than 60 years. He attended or covered most of them. Like all of us of a certain age, he waited 52 years for this Super Bowl win, 58 if you count the time since Norm Van Brocklin (and Chuck Bednarik sitting on Jim Taylor) took the Eagles to glory against Bart Starr’s Green Bay Packers in 1960. Before there was an AFL, and AFC, or a Super Bowl.

By the way, in 1960, home games were blacked out on local television, and Eagles fans had to go to other markets to see the team defeat Vince Lombardi and the Packers. They were the first and only team that ever did.

Now the Eagles are once again Goliath killers.

And television let us be a part of all of it. The Eagles knit us together, but television supplied the thread, and the yarns, to keep us experience this joyful event as one.

Redgrave’s Oscar

Thanks to reader, Facebook friend, and Hedgerow buddy Susan Tiedeck for “wondering” out loud how Vanessa Redgrave could win an Oscar in 1877 when the award was not conferred until 1928.

Typos do happen, especially to me.

Miss Redgrave was given her Oscar for 1977. Neither she nor I had much to do with the movies in the 19th century.

I hope I see you at the Hedgerow’s “Wait Until Dark,” Susan. Meanwhile, if you haven’t, be sure you see “Next to Normal” at the Media Theatre. It’s the best show they’ve ever produced.